Estimation of cutting volume with three inventory methods for harvest planning in Canadian boreal forests.

Two methods of pre-harvest inventory were designed and tested on three cutting sites containing a total of 197 500 m3 of wood. These sites were located on flat-ground boreal forests located in northwestern Quebec. Both methods studied involved scaling of trees harvested to clear the road path one year (or more) prior to harvest of adjacent cut-blocks. The first method (ROAD) considers the total road right-of-way volume divided by the total road area cleared. The resulting volume per hectare is then multiplied by the total cut-block area scheduled for harvest during the following year to obtain the total estimated cutting volume. The second method (STRATIFIED) also involves scaling of trees cleared from the road. However, in STRATIFIED, log scaling data are stratified by forest stand location. A volume per hectare is calculated for each stretch of road that crosses a single forest stand. This volume per hectare is then multiplied by the remaining area of the same forest stand scheduled for harvest one year later. The sum of all resulting estimated volumes per stand gives the total estimated cutting-volume for all cut-blocks adjacent to the studied road. A third method (MNR) was also used to estimate cut-volumes of the sites studied. This method represents the actual existing technique for estimating cutting volume in the province of Quebec. It involves summing the cut volume for all forest stands. The cut volume is estimated by multiplying the area of each stand by its estimated volume per hectare obtained from standard stock tables provided by the governement. The resulting total estimated volume per cut-block for all three methods was then compared with the actual measured cut-block volume (MEASURED). This analysis revealed a significant difference between MEASURED and MNR methods with the MNR volume estimate being 30 % higher than MEASURED. However, no significant difference from MEASURED was observed for volume estimates for the ROAD and STRATIFIED methods which respectively had estimated cutting volumes 19 % and 5 % lower than MEASURED. Thus the ROAD and STRATIFIED methods are good ways to estimate cut-block volumes after road right-of-way harvest for conditions similar to those examined in this study.

Methods and applications for improving parameter prediction models for stand structures in Finland

This thesis report attempts to improve the models for predicting forest stand structure for practical use, e.g. forest management planning (FMP) purposes in Finland. Comparisons were made between Weibull and Johnson s SB distribution and alternative regression estimation methods. Data used for preliminary studies was local but the final models were based on representative data. Models were validated mainly in terms of bias and RMSE in the main stand characteristics (e.g. volume) using independent data. The bivariate SBB distribution model was used to mimic realistic variations in tree dimensions by including within-diameter-class height variation. Using the traditional method, diameter distribution with the expected height resulted in reduced height variation, whereas the alternative bivariate method utilized the error-term of the height model. The lack of models for FMP was covered to some extent by the models for peatland and juvenile stands. The validation of these models showed that the more sophisticated regression estimation methods provided slightly improved accuracy. A flexible prediction and application for stand structure consisted of seemingly unrelated regression models for eight stand characteristics, the parameters of three optional distributions and Näslund s height curve. The cross-model covariance structure was used for linear prediction application, in which the expected values of the models were calibrated with the known stand characteristics. This provided a framework to validate the optional distributions and the optional set of stand characteristics. Height distribution is recommended for the earliest state of stands because of its continuous feature. From the mean height of about 4 m, Weibull dbh-frequency distribution is recommended in young stands if the input variables consist of arithmetic stand characteristics. In advanced stands, basal area-dbh distribution models are recommended. Näslund s height curve proved useful. Some efficient transformations of stand characteristics are introduced, e.g. the shape index, which combined the basal area, the stem number and the median diameter. Shape index enabled SB model for peatland stands to detect large variation in stand densities. This model also demonstrated reasonable behaviour for stands in mineral soils.

Optimization of two-dimensional NMR by matched accumulation

It is well known that in the time-domain acquisition of NMR data, signal-to-noise (S/N) improves as the square root of the number of transients accumulated. However, the amplitude of the measured signal varies during the time of detection, having a functional form dependent on the coherence detected. Matching the time spent signal averaging to the expected amplitude of the signal observed should also improve the detected signal-to-noise. Following this reasoning, Barna et al. (J Magn. Reson.75, 384, 1987) demonstrated the utility of exponential sampling in one- and two-dimensional NMR, using maximum-entropy methods to analyze the data. It is proposed here that for two-dimensional experiments the exponential sampling be replaced by exponential averaging. The data thus collected can be analyzed by standard fast-Fourier-transform routines. We demonstrate the utility of exponential averaging in 2D NOESY spectra of the protein ubiquitin, in which an enhanced SIN is observed. It is also shown that the method acquires delayed double-quantum-filtered COSY without phase distortion.

Diastereomeric Drug Glucuronides: Enzymatic Glucuronidation and Analysis by Capillary Electrophoresis and Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

Foreign compounds, such as drugs are metabolised in the body in numerous reactions. Metabolic reactions are divided into phase I (functionalisation) and phase II (conjugation) reactions. Uridine diphosphoglucuronosyltransferase enzymes (UGTs) are important catalysts of phase II metabolic system. They catalyse the transfer of glucuronic acid to small lipophilic molecules and convert them to hydrophilic and polar glucuronides that are readily excreted from the body. Liver is the main site of drug metabolism. Many drugs are racemic mixtures of two enantiomers. Glucuronidation of a racemic compound yields a pair of diastereomeric glucuronides. Stereoisomers are interesting substrates in glucuronidation studies since some UGTs display stereoselectivity. Diastereomeric glucuronides of O-desmethyltramadol (M1) and entacapone were selected as model compounds in this work. The investigations of the thesis deal with enzymatic glucuronidation and the development of analytical methods for drug metabolites, particularly diastereomeric glucuronides. The glucuronides were analysed from complex biological matrices, such as urine or from in vitro incubation matrices. Various pretreatment techniques were needed to purify, concentrate and isolate the analytes of interest. Analyses were carried out by liquid chromatography (LC) with ultraviolet (UV) or mass spectrometric (MS) detection or with capillary electromigration techniques. Commercial glucuronide standards were not available for the studies. Enzyme-assisted synthesis with rat liver microsomes was therefore used to produce M1 glucuronides as reference compounds. The glucuronides were isolated by LC/UV and ultra performance liquid chromatography (UPLC)/MS, while tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy were employed in structural characterisation. The glucuronides were identified as phenolic O-glucuronides of M1. To identify the active UGT enzymes in (±)-M1 glucuronidation recombinant human UGTs and human tissue microsomes were incubated with (±)-M1. The study revealed that several UGTs can catalyse (±)-M1 glucuronidation. Glucuronidation in human liver microsomes like in rat liver microsomes is stereoselective. The results of the studies showed that UGT2B7, most probably, is the main UGT responsible for (±)-M1 glucuronidation in human liver. Large variation in stereoselectivity of UGTs toward (±)-M1 enantiomers was observed. Formation of M1 glucuronides was monitored with a fast and selective UPLC/MS method. Capillary electromigration techniques are known for their high resolution power. A method that relied on capillary electrophoresis (CE) with UV detection was developed for the separation of tramadol and its free and glucuronidated metabolites. The suitability of the method to identify tramadol metabolites in an authentic urine samples was tested. Unaltered tramadol and four of its main metabolites were detected in the electropherogram. A micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC) /UV method was developed for the separation of the glucuronides of entacapone in human urine. The validated method was tested in the analysis of urine samples of patients. The glucuronides of entacapone could be quantified after oral entacapone dosing.

Computational Methods for Studies of Quantum Dots and Boson Condensates

This thesis presents ab initio studies of two kinds of physical systems, quantum dots and bosons, using two program packages of which the bosonic one has mainly been developed by the author. The implemented models, \emph{i.e.}, configuration interaction (CI) and coupled cluster (CC) take the correlated motion of the particles into account, and provide a hierarchy of computational schemes, on top of which the exact solution, within the limit of the single-particle basis set, is obtained. The theory underlying the models is presented in some detail, in order to provide insight into the approximations made and the circumstances under which they hold. Some of the computational methods are also highlighted. In the final sections the results are summarized. The CI and CC calculations on multiexciton complexes in self-assembled semiconductor quantum dots are presented and compared, along with radiative and non-radiative transition rates. Full CI calculations on quantum rings and double quantum rings are also presented. In the latter case, experimental and theoretical results from the literature are re-examined and an alternative explanation for the reported photoluminescence spectra is found. The boson program is first applied on a fictitious model system consisting of bosonic electrons in a central Coulomb field for which CI at the singles and doubles level is found to account for almost all of the correlation energy. Finally, the boson program is employed to study Bose-Einstein condensates confined in different anisotropic trap potentials. The effects of the anisotropy on the relative correlation energy is examined, as well as the effect of varying the interaction potential.}

Vain hätapua? : Taloudellinen avustaminen diakoniatyön professionaalisen itseymmärryksen ilmentäjänä

Financial Help Alone? Financial help as an exponent of professional diaconal work One essential form of helping people in the Evangelical Lutheran Church s diaconal work is providing economic aid. It can be seen as work which is in accordance with the spirit of the Church Order (4:3). One of the tasks of diaconal work, determined by the Church Order, is to help those whose distress is the greatest and who have no other source of help. This financial support has become a permanent and essential working method, which has also created tension of various kinds. Financial support has been criticized, especially when the support has been used to fill a gap in the social services provided by the government. It has been argued that diaconal work has been forced to take on responsibility for tasks that belong to the welfare state. The tensions involved in the financial support of diaconal work do not only concern the patching up and supplementing of the deficiencies in the welfare state s services but also the question of diaconal workers self-understanding of financial support and how it relates to their professionalism. In this thesis, I examine the experiences and visions diaconal workers have concerning financial support in their work with clients. The viewpoint of my work is the diaconal workers own experiences and interpretations of the meaning of financial support in customer service. In the articles of my thesis, I examined the meanings that diaconal workers gave to financial support in the aspects of work motivation, empowerment, expertise and tensions. The research material of my articles consists of three different data, which are theme interviews from diaconal workers, a survey from diaconal workers of Espoo and a diaconal barometer of 2009. I have analysed the theme interviews and the survey using qualitative content analysis. The results of my articles showed that diaconal workers motivation in tasks concerning economic aid was sustained by the nature and spiritual aspects of support activities. Work that supported empowerment through financial assistance meant influencing the client s personal life, community and local ties and structural circumstances of the surrounding society. Diaconal workers expertise in financial support work can be characterised as horizontal, which means that the expertise was built on acknowledging the client s dignity, the uniqueness of the client s life situation and listening to the client s own voice. Diaconal workers were also experts in community and area-based work. The tensions in financial support work are linked to its unofficial and undefined role in the field of social welfare and the inability of other aiding parties to respond to their duties. The results of my thesis on the experiences and visions of financial support reveal that it is multilateral and multidimensional. Diaconal workers used financial support to help the clients, taking into account their individual, communal, social and spiritual context. The professionalism of this financial support is reflectively related to the client s need of help and the spontaneity and unexpectedness of the situation. Support work was deeply bound to diaconal workers experiences of spirituality as the basic value in their work, the foundation of their idea of humanity and their method of helping others. In different tasks of financial support diaconal workers balanced between traditional, individual client work based on caritas and working methods which are based on supporting the individual s empowerment and active citizenship, as in postmodern social work. Diaconal workers experiences of financial support illustrated the transition or turning point in the professionalism of diaconal work, which involves finding one s own, stronger and clearer professional identity than earlier with respect to other helpers in society. Creating a unique identity is part of the empowerment process of diaconal work, in which it must define its professional role by itself. In postmodern pluralism and the fragmented context of diaconal activities, the question arose as to whether the spiritual traditions and traditional values of diaconal work support the modifications and adaptations needed in new, unpredictable situations. Diaconal work is said to be fast to react, able to predict changes and adapt to those changes. To preserve its sensitive reactive ability, also in the complex postmodern world, it must retain its own views and orientations. Otherwise, the distinctive values and traditions of diaconal work might sustain static diaconal work, employee-centeredness and a smug attitude when defining beneficiaries and needs, which highlights the paternalism of diaconal work. Such paternalism may complicate the progress of working methods which are based on empowerment and citizenship.

New methods for the Preparation of Nitrosyl Chloride

A pure sample of nitrosyl chloride has been prepared either by reaction of phosphorus trichloride with concentrated nitric acid or by reaction of phosphorus trichloride with sodium nitrate in presence of water. The nitrosyl chloride gas has been characterized by i.r. spectral data and elemental analysis.

Fast distributed approximation algorithms for vertex cover and set cover in anonymous networks

We present a distributed algorithm that finds a maximal edge packing in O(Δ + log* W) synchronous communication rounds in a weighted graph, independent of the number of nodes in the network; here Δ is the maximum degree of the graph and W is the maximum weight. As a direct application, we have a distributed 2-approximation algorithm for minimum-weight vertex cover, with the same running time. We also show how to find an f-approximation of minimum-weight set cover in O(f2k2 + fk log* W) rounds; here k is the maximum size of a subset in the set cover instance, f is the maximum frequency of an element, and W is the maximum weight of a subset. The algorithms are deterministic, and they can be applied in anonymous networks.

Some nonstandard error analysis of discontinuous Galerkin methods for elliptic problems

An a priori error analysis of discontinuous Galerkin methods for a general elliptic problem is derived under a mild elliptic regularity assumption on the solution. This is accomplished by using some techniques from a posteriori error analysis. The model problem is assumed to satisfy a GAyenrding type inequality. Optimal order L (2) norm a priori error estimates are derived for an adjoint consistent interior penalty method.

Comparative study of different formulations and solution methods for two phase flow in saturated porous media

Six models (Simulators) are formulated and developed with all possible combinations of pressure and saturation of the phases as primary variables. A comparative study between six simulators with two numerical methods, conventional simultaneous and modified sequential methods are carried out. The results of the numerical models are compared with the laboratory experimental results to study the accuracy of the model especially in heterogeneous porous media. From the study it is observed that the simulator using pressure and saturation of the wetting fluid (PW, SW formulation) is the best among the models tested. Many simulators with nonwetting phase as one of the primary variables did not converge when used along with simultaneous method. Based on simulator 1 (PW, SW formulation), a comparison of different solution methods such as simultaneous method, modified sequential and adaptive solution modified sequential method are carried out on 4 test problems including heterogeneous and randomly heterogeneous problems. It is found that the modified sequential and adaptive solution modified sequential methods could save the memory by half and as also the CPU time required by these methods is very less when compared with that using simultaneous method. It is also found that the simulator with PNW and PW as the primary variable which had problem of convergence using the simultaneous method, converged using both the modified sequential method and also using adaptive solution modified sequential method. The present study indicates that pressure and saturation formulation along with adaptive solution modified sequential method is the best among the different simulators and methods tested.

A geodesic-based triangulation technique for damage location in metallic and composite plates

Lamb-wave-based damage detection methods using the triangulation technique are not suitable for handling structures with complex shapes and discontinuities as the parametric/analytical representation of these structures is very difficult. The geodesic concept is used along with the triangulation technique to overcome the above problem. The present work is based on the fundamental fact that a wave takes the minimum energy path to travel between two points on any multiply connected surface and this reduces to the shortest distance path or geodesic. The geodesics are computed on the meshed surface of the structure using the fast marching method. The wave response matrix of the given sensor configuration for the healthy and the damaged structure is obtained experimentally. The healthy and damage response matrices are compared and their difference gives the time information about the reflection of waves from the damage. A wavelet transform is used to extract the arrival time information of the wave scattered by the damage from the acquired Lamb wave signals. The computed geodesics and time information are used in the ellipse algorithm of triangulation formulation to locate the loci of possible damage location points for each actuator-sensor pair. The results obtained for all actuator-sensor pairs are combined and the intersection of multiple loci gives the damage location result. Experiments were conducted in aluminum and composite plate specimens to validate this method.

Chemical Characterization of Urban Background Aerosol Using Online And Filter Methods

In order to evaluate the influence of ambient aerosol particles on cloud formation, climate and human health, detailed information about the concentration and composition of ambient aerosol particles is needed. The dura-tion of aerosol formation, growth and removal processes in the atmosphere range from minutes to hours, which highlights the need for high-time-resolution data in order to understand the underlying processes. This thesis focuses on characterization of ambient levels, size distributions and sources of water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC) in ambient aerosols. The results show that in the location of this study typically 50-60 % of organic carbon in fine particles is water-soluble. The amount of WSOC was observed to increase as aerosols age, likely due to further oxidation of organic compounds. In the boreal region the main sources of WSOC were biomass burning during the winter and secondary aerosol formation during the summer. WSOC was mainly attributed to a fine particle mode between 0.1 - 1 μm, although different size distributions were measured for different sources. The WSOC concentrations and size distributions had a clear seasonal variation. Another main focus of this thesis was to test and further develop the high-time-resolution methods for chemical characterization of ambient aerosol particles. The concentrations of the main chemical components (ions, OC, EC) of ambient aerosol particles were measured online during a year-long intensive measurement campaign conducted on the SMEAR III station in Southern Finland. The results were compared to the results of traditional filter collections in order to study sampling artifacts and limitations related to each method. To achieve better a time resolution for the WSOC and ion measurements, a particle-into-liquid sampler (PILS) was coupled with a total organic carbon analyzer (TOC) and two ion chromatographs (IC). The PILS-TOC-IC provided important data about diurnal variations and short-time plumes, which cannot be resolved from the filter samples. In summary, the measurements made for this thesis provide new information on the concentrations, size distribu-tions and sources of WSOC in ambient aerosol particles in the boreal region. The analytical and collection me-thods needed for the online characterization of aerosol chemical composition were further developed in order to provide more reliable high-time-resolution measurements.